The staging was expensive, but its political value was priceless. According to the Pentagon, the bill for deploying the National Guard and 700 Marines to Los Angeles, a move ordered by President Donald Trump to "liberate" the city from rioters, has already reached $134 million. But the benefit for the US president was immediate. Footage of soldiers facing masked protesters, some waving Latin American flags or throwing projectiles, has flooded social media and television screens. The looting of an Apple store only reinforced the narrative of a criminal, predatory protest. Trump condemned "insurrectionists," "agitators" and "paid troublemakers" – terms delegitimizing protests regardless of their motivations.

Throughout his election campaign, Trump pushed the narrative that the United States was undergoing a "migrant invasion," claiming that there are "more than 20 million" undocumented migrants, supposedly invited in by the Biden administration. Now the billionaire has pushed a similar narrative: He described, despite the facts, an insurrection in California intent on resisting the enforcement of immigration law. He has an ally in this endeavor: the Democratic camp, which is incapable of articulating a consensus view and offering a clear message on immigration. Former US president Joe Biden had been slow to grasp the urgency at the Mexican border. But the entire left seemed adrift, wavering between condemnation of Trump's crackdown and an airy promotion of immigration's virtues.

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